Sighting in Saint-François, September 6, 2025

In the early morning, a witness and their partner were on the terrace of their home when they noticed a single bright light moving in a straight line across the sky, from left to right, above a celestial body. The witness filmed it with a smartphone for just over a minute, and the original video was passed to the GEIPAN.

Analysis of the file's metadata with the GEIPAN's IPACO tool confirmed that it was recorded at 9:17 UTC, which is 5:17 local time. The strong brightness in the footage matched dawn conditions, before sunrise. An astronomical reconstruction with Stellarium showed that the celestial body in the sequence was Venus, at roughly 77° azimuth and 20° elevation. Jupiter was also in the sky, but too high to fall within the camera's field of view. Air traffic data (FlightRadar24 and ADSB Exchange) showed no aircraft during the observation.

The CNES Operational Centre for Space Surveillance was then consulted. Its calculation showed that the ISS was visible from the witnesses' location at that moment. Its path, from the northeast toward the southeast, and its azimuths (50° to 112°) and elevations (10° to 30°) were consistent with the account. The GEIPAN rated the case's consistency as medium: two witnesses but only one testimony, a usable video, and little information on direction and context. It classified the case as A: the sighting was a pass of the International Space Station.